Today, most work is done in business processes and projects, with a plurality of people participating and working together as a team. For example, in product development, team members can be technicians, programmers, product designers, sales persons and marketing experts. Another example can be customer support, where customers can be supported by key account managers, technicians, sales persons and others, if necessary.
The projects and business processes can be described in general as processes. Within the processes, the team members communicate with each other. This communication can happen using various different means of communication. This means of communication can be, among others, personal communication between the team members, but also communication using telephones, emails, web-conferences, video conferences, and the like.
The members of communication need not necessarily be humans. It can also be possible that a member of communication can be a database, which is interrogated by the team members from time to time to obtain certain pieces of information. Members can, for example, also be certain computer applications or programs used by the team members during their work, or certain web applications, such as online dictionaries, online registers, or the like.
Each time members of a communication initiate a communication this can be regarded as a communication event. A communication event can represent one particular communication occasion. For example, when two team members have a phone conference, they initiate a communication event, which can be of the type “phone conference.” Another example can be a video conference, attended by a plurality of persons. This one video conference can also be regarded as a communication event, which can be of the type “video conference.” As another example, an email can also be regarded as a communication event, which can be of the type “email.” Moreover, each time a user checks an online dictionary for a particular word, he can create a communication event, which can be of the type “web access.”
Communication events can be generated each time at least two members interact with each other. These communication events can be electronically-supported communication or personal communication.
It is common knowledge that email traffic can be monitored using an email server. Within this email server, all incoming and outgoing emails can at least be scanned for retrieving author and recipient information. It is also possible to store the email for each person individually. In addition, the emails can comprise project-related information either within the subject line, or within the text body of the mail. Known tools allow scanning emails for certain words or strings within the subject line or within the text body. This enables users to organize email traffic into folders, having an overview of the emails concerning particular topics and thus being enabled to track certain communication threads. It can also be possible to provide an automatic screening tool to organize all email traffic having particular strings in the subject line automatically into respective folders generating an overall overview of email traffic relating to the topic as indicated in the subject line. The screening can also be done selectively by person, e.g., by screening email traffic of particular persons. The screening, however, needs to be configured manually.
It is also known to have a central telecommunication server. This central telecommunication server can be able to keep track of all incoming, outgoing, and internal telephone communication. The communication events generated by the phone calls can be stored as entries in databases and can be assigned to respective extension lines. This enables tracking of telephone communications on one particular extension line.
However, communication between members of a process is more complex than just email or telephone. Members of a team interact with each other using various different means of communication. With known methods and systems it is possible to monitor the communication via only one particular communications means; however, an integrated tracking of communication between members is not possible.
As indicated earlier, most business communication happens related to projects and processes. Many different members participate in a project and communicate with each other. For a project manager, it would be helpful to have an overview of all communication that is related to the process he manages. The process manager might want to analyze communication and might use this information for staffing of future projects. Replacement of team members during the course of a continuing project may result in lost information. In order to let the new member of the team have knowledge of previous communications, it may be useful to know the communication partners and frequency of communication of the previous team member.